Timeline: From Bear to AIG, credit crunch victims pile up

(Reuters) - Following charts the course of the biggest financial industry crisis since the Great Depression. * June 2007: Two Bear Stearns hedge funds suffer after bad bets on U.S. subprime mortgage-related securities. * July-Sept: German bank IKB becomes first in Europe to be hit by bad investments in U.S. subprime market; SachsenLB bailed out in September, also due to subprime exposure * Sept 14: First run on a major UK bank in over a century as customers besiege mortgage bank Northern Rock. * Oct 15: Citigroup posts surprise 57 percent drop in Q3 profit, hurt by $6.5 billion subprime-related write-downs and losses. CEO resigns November 4. * Dec 17: Credit crunch spreads to Australia's Centro Properties, a U.S. shopping mall owner, which issues profit warning. Its shares drop 70 percent. * Jan 11, 2008: Bank of America pays $4 billion for Countrywide Financial after the mortgage lender goes bust when risky loans to shaky borrowers fail. * Jan 30: UBS announces $4 billion new write-downs, taking total subprime-related writedowns to $18.4 billion. * Feb 17: Northern Rock nationalized after funding crisis. * Feb 28: Germany's DZ Bank joins growing list of subprime casualties, posting 1.36 billion euros in write-downs. * March 16/17: Bear Stearns sold to U.S. investment bank JP Morgan Chase for about $2 a share. * April 29: Deutsche Bank reports first pretax loss in five years after writing down $4.2 billion in bad loans and mortgage-backed securities. * July 11: U.S. banking regulators seize IndyMac Bancorp Inc as the largest independent publicly traded U.S. mortgage lender collapses after depositors withdraw more than $1.3 billion over 11 days. * July 13: U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve effectively nationalize mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a bid to support U.S. housing market. * July 31: Deutsche Bank announces another $3.6 billion writedowns, taking its bill from the financial crisis beyond $11 billion and putting it among the top 10 global casualties. * Sept 15: Wall Street's worst day since markets reopened after the September 2001 attacks; Lehman Brothers in largest U.S. bankruptcy; Merrill Lynch taken over by Bank of America Corp; American International Group, once the world's top insurer, scrambles for capital because of losses on its mortgage-related debt. * Sept 16: Central banks pump billions of dollars into money markets in a bid to ease tensions and prevent global financial system from freezing: AIG shares almost halve. Fed announces plan for $85 billion AIG rescue loan in return for 80 percent stake; Britain's Barclays buys parts of Lehman's North American assets for $1.75 billion. * Sept 17: Shares in Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley fall sharply; Britain's Lloyds TSB buys rival HBOS; U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) curbs short-selling. * Sept 19: World stock markets soar on U.S. plans to buy up so-called toxic assets, helping cleanse the financial system. * Sept 20-21: Details emerge of U.S. plan for $700 billion bailout for firms burdened by bad mortgage debt; Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley transformed into bank holding companies, ending Wall Street's investment banking model. * Sept 22: Japan's Nomura Holdings buys Lehman's Asia operations for up to $525 million. Later, Nomura buys Lehman's Europe and Middle East operations; Mitsubishi UFJ Financial agrees to buy up to 20 percent of Morgan Stanley. * Sept 23: Warren Buffett pays $5 billion for up to 9 percent of Goldman Sachs; FBI probes Fannie, Freddie, AIG and Lehman for potential mortgage fraud, according to CNN. (Compiled by Asiadesk and Gillian Murdoch, Beijing Editorial Reference Unit; Editing by Ian Geoghegan) ʘ